The Otesha Project

Last May when we moved offices everyone got very excited about the courtyard we face onto. The letting agents think it’s a carpark, but we maintain that it’s a courtyard. And everyone knows that a courtyard needs two things: bike racks and greenery.

Said letting agents did actually get some extra bike racks installed for the cycling behemoth that is Otesha. They have frowned a bit about the greenery, but we have persisted. So much so that even in February we’ve been eating carpark garden grown salad in our lunches.

Together with our officemates My Bnk and Foodcycle we’ve begged, borrowed and found-in-skips enough pots and planters to meet our growing needs. We filled them with compost from Spitalfields City Farm and from our very own wormcafe. We scattered some seeds, sat back at our desks and watched them grow. Over the summer we ate our own tomatoes, chives, chillies, mint, green beans, basil, rosemary, nasturtium, rocket and mizuna. The wormery takes care of all food waste and teabags (the teabags far outweigh the food waste, either we’re not very wasteful or we drink too much tea).

We haven’t yet decided what to plant this year. The mizuna just keeps on coming, the chives are just popping their heads up through the soil and we’ve got a coriander sprouting in preparation on the desk. There’s talk of trying potatoes and strawberries, one of the interns wants to make strawberry mash!